Posted on 12/05/2002 5:38:57 PM PST by dighton
General Ne Win, the former president of Burma (now Myanmar), who died yesterday aged 91, ruled his country with an iron fist for 26 years, dragging it into poverty-stricken isolation.
Ne Win, who seized power in a coup in 1962, was xenophobic, capricious, superstitious and fascinated by the occult “science” of numerology.
Nine was his lucky number: important events were staged on dates whose numbers, when added together, made nine; and in 1987, after deciding that all banknotes should be divisible by nine, he introduced the 45-kyat and 90-kyat notes. The result was that Burmese who had hoarded 100-kyat notes lost all their savings.
On other occasions, he told his ministers to eat mohingka, a poor man’s dish of fish and noodles, to solve the problem of poverty; ordered everyone to start driving on the right side of the road, rather than the left, on the advice of a wizard; and was once seen in the middle of the night, dressed as a king, walking backwards over a bridge in Rangoon, apparently on the advice of his soothsayers.
Burma, which changed its name to Myanmar in 1989, paid dearly for Ne Win’s eccentric but ruthless despotism. Rich in natural resources, it had once been seen as potentially the wealthiest country in south east Asia. Under Ne Win, it became the poorest.
Human rights were routinely violated: thousands died in demonstrations against Ne Win’s rule and, in the country’s prisons, jailers would invite friends over for “beating parties”. In 1990 Amnesty International reported that political prisoners were regularly made to crawl over broken glass, given electric shocks and had salt and curry powder rubbed into their wounds.
Ne Win maintained his hold on power by using bribery. Senior army officers were kept on side with large cash hand-outs, often deposited in Swiss bank accounts. And, while the majority of the population lived in destitution, Ne Win lived a life of luxury. He married seven times, twice to the same woman, was said to bathe in dolphin’s blood to regain his youth, and amassed a fortune estimated at $4 billion.
After his retirement in 1988, Ne Win continued to manipulate the military officers he had appointed to govern. His influence began to wane only in the late 1990s and, in March, he was placed under house arrest; this followed the arrest of his three grandsons and a son-in-law on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. The ruling junta claimed that the Ne Win clan had used black magic and voodoo dolls as part of their plot.
The son of a district revenue surveyor, Ne Win was born Shu Maung (“apple of one’s eye”) in the town of Paungdale in central Burma, then under British rule, on May 24 1911.
After dropping out of Rangoon University, he became a postal clerk and joined the nationalist “Dobama Asiayone” (“Our Burma”) association, coming into contact with the nationalist leaders Aung San and U Nu. In 1940, he was one of 30 nationalists sent to Japan for military training. He took the name Ne Win (“brilliant as the sun”) and became a commander in the Japanese-sponsored Burma National Army, and aide to Aung San.
Within two months of the Japanese invasion of Burma in December 1941, Ne Win had returned to his homeland, where he started persuading Burmese units attached to the British Army to defect to the nationalist cause. But the Burmese guerrilla army was swiftly followed into Rangoon by Japanese troops, who flew their banner, not the Burmese tricolour, from Government House.
In August, 1943, the Japanese established an “independent” Burmese government with Aung San as Minister of War and Ne Win, then a colonel, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army.
Over the next two years, Ne Win became convinced that the Japanese intended to colonise the country, and prepared to change sides. With the British invasion of Burma in December 1944, he led his men into the Irrawaddy delta, launching a fierce guerrilla war against the Japanese until their defeat in August 1945.
Burma finally achieved independence in 1948, but the dream of nationhood soon turned sour. The assassination of Aung San the previous year had unleashed political and ethnic tensions and the incoming Prime Minister, U Nu, with Ne Win as his deputy and defence minister, was faced with the threat of civil war.
For nearly a decade the two men maintained a semblance of order, but, in 1958, U Nu’s political support split apart. In September, to avoid civil war, Ne Win moved his troops into key positions and agreed to form a caretaker government for six months so that fresh elections could be held.
Ne Win stamped his authority on the situation, setting public services running again and deporting crowds of refugees from Rangoon to outlying areas. At the end of six months, he was persuaded to stay on for a further year, after which he called elections.
U Nu won a landslide victory, but soon ran into difficulties, and in March 1962, Ne Win led a military coup, arresting U Nu, along with his cabinet and the tribal chiefs. Claiming he would give Burma a government “appropriate to its needs”, he declared martial law, dissolved the legislature and supreme court and abolished the constitution.
Two months later, as chairman of a ruling Revolutionary Council, Ne Win published The Burmese Way To Socialism, promising to end the nation’s “pernicious” economic system through “political and economic mysticism”. Simultaneously, foreign charitable foundations were told to leave and contact with foreigners was restricted.
Open resistance to Ne Win’s regime erupted at Rangoon University, where students staged demonstrations in July 1962. Their campus was invaded by troops and, in a general warning to his opponents, Ne Win promised to meet “sword with sword, spear with spear”.
In 1963 he tightened his grip by nationalising foreign banks and businesses, forcing the resignation of his closest challenger on the Revolutionary Council, Brigadier Aung Gyi, an advocate of a mixed economy. He then ordered mass arrests of opposition politicians.
Burma’s situation deteriorated rapidly, and even Ne Win was eventually forced to admit that it had become “an economic mess”. In 1966 he eased controls on commerce, and freed U Nu and other opponents from detention. There was no improvement, and in the 1970s Burma’s electricity supply was routinely cut off for four or five hours each day.
In 1974 Ne Win proclaimed a new constitution, transferring power to a single-party civilian “People’s Assembly”, composed of Ne Win (as president of a renamed Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma), and his senior military aides, who simply changed their uniforms for mufti.
Ne Win officially “retired” as president in 1981, having become bored with day-to-day administration. But he remained the effective power in the land as head of the Burma Socialist Programme Party. “I shall be watching from the Party,” he warned his colleagues. “All those who would be directly concerned with the practical aspects of the work should exercise utmost caution.”
Seven years later, he “retired” yet again, this time as party chairman, just before the popular uprising for democracy that brought Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, to political prominence. Up to 10,000 unarmed demonstrators were killed in the subsequent military crackdown, some being cremated while still alive. Many more fled into exile.
Ne Win continued to manipulate events, first under the government of the hard-line Sein Lwin (nicknamed “The Butcher”), and later under General Saw Maung, who staged his own coup following renewed rioting.
Three opposition leaders - U Nu, Brigadier General Aung Gyi and Aung San Suu Kyi - appealed to Saw Maung, who promised to restore multi-party democracy. But since he was closely identified with Ne Win, the goal remained elusive. U Nu and Aung San Suu Kyi were banned from contesting the elections held in 1990.
Although these resulted in victory for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, the military remained in power under Saw Maung. Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest, where she remained until 1995, before being detained again in 2000; she was released in May.
Ne Win spent the last years of his life a virtual recluse, holed up for months or years at a time in his heavily-guarded lakeside villa in the north of Rangoon. His last appearance was on March 21 2001, when he offered lunch to 99 Buddhist monks and 504 “friends”.
Wasn't he on the McLaughlin Group?
I think he's actually related to Louis Farakahn somehow.
On NOW at RadioFR!
Doug from Upland interviews JAYNA DAVIS discussing the OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING
But he was FUN!
U Nu there was going to be trouble from Ne Win. But Ne Win couldn't win in the end. Ne End.
Sorry, I'm abandoning this article in favor of something more readable - where did I put that copy of Finnegans Wake?
CALYPSO LOUIE!!!!
. On other occasions, he told his ministers to eat mohingka, a poor man’s dish of fish and noodles, to solve the problem of poverty; ordered everyone to start driving on the right side of the road, rather than the left, on the advice of a wizard; and was once seen in the middle of the night, dressed as a king, walking backwards over a bridge in Rangoon, apparently on the advice of his soothsayers.
True, but a long time supporter of National Public Radio.
True, but a long time supporter of National Public Radio.
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